Space technology has helped to create a new cure for cancer

Russian developers have presented the drug with a fundamentally new mechanism of action. It has all chances to become universal, eliminating the various types of cancer and tumours of different localization, writes “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”. To complete the preclinical development testing on mice. Testing a heat shock protein. So far the results look impressive.

Says Deputy Director of the State research Institute of highly pure biopreparations, FMBA, corresponding member of RAS Andrey Simbirtsev: “the Researchers call a special protein substances that are produced by body cells in response to stress, particularly associated with thermal effects. This protein protects the cell from damage, but also, as revealed in the process of learning, helps the body’s immune system to recognize modified (cancer) cells and enhances the antitumor immune response. An important step in the research was the study of the structure of the protein. To protein crystal structure is growing uniformly, the experiment was conducted in microgravity on the ISS”.

“But this does not mean that the drug synthesis also needed to be conducted in space. The first experimental batch for clinical trials we will synthesise in our Institute. For this we have the necessary equipment and license,” adds Simbirtsev. To date, a positive effect was achieved against three different cancers – melanoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and glioblastoma.

Scientists hope that their development will become a universal product, suitable for the treatment of immune dependent forms of tumors. About the price of the final product is difficult to judge. But, probably, the Russian drug is significantly more affordable overseas. In clinical trials scientists need about 100 million rubles.